What are the material / steps / knowledge required for a Scrum Master to run a PMO?

Question

Background

Recently I started to work in a new company that does not have any methodology in place, but the company does have an idea to set up a PMO to act as a central hub to gather and to run all the projects the company is about to do.

At the moment I'm the only one there to take care of all the foundation work. Basically the company wants me to do is to build the processes for governance of projects and to build PM process flows.

Advice Needed

I do have experience in leading a technical team and managing a project, but where I am right now is more towards the business side. I'm surrounded by people who are not technical. Many of them are marketers and also C-level people. I am experiencing a different culture here.

What are the material / steps / knowledge required for a Scrum Master like me to run a PMO? I'm a bit overwhelmed and stressed about the term PPM, other PMP, and ITIL, etc. What will you do as an Agile person to lead the PMO?

Answer 1

My advice is this: get your company to hire the right people to build its PMO. In my observations in IT for the past 20 or so years, I have witnessed systemic under estimation of the skills necessary to build and maintain strong PM capabilities, with an attitude that: "these are just soft or non skilled functions that anyone can do." Then the PMO seriously under performs, reinforcing that a PMO is not really necessary or is just wasted overhead.

PMO processes are not enabled by just anyone. I have found that technical folks think these processes are easy to implement, dismissing these PMO pros as not much more than spreadsheet keepers. I think this just happens in the IT space, not in other industries.

You're right to be overwhelmed. You're not the right person to stand this up. This is not to say you cannot be in due time; however, you don't have the knowledge now. Your company is setting the PMO to under perform and to fail way before you have even started. I have witnessed this over and over and have not yet been proven wrong, at least in my organization within my experience and observations.

Answer 2

IMO, this is more of a culture transformation than a PMO division setup or few policies. If your company can afford to hire a PMO with high experience or an Agile Coach (senior to yourself) with tremendous experience in that field, then you should recommend it. Generally, people tend to be more acceptive to someone with decades of experience in a field.

If budget is an issue here, then slowly start molding their psyche towards PM practices. For example, start sharing a useful publication/article per week, which can slowly transform your peer's minds. This is long-term solution requiring lots of patience.

Answer 3

This link consists of a presentation basically in which the same thing is taught that how can someone setup a project management office. Also it discusses the major components of a PMO and evaluation of a PMO.